Oh great, United is looking at lots of "mini-strikes" and work stopages because their pension plans got whacked. I'm flying United all over the United States for the next seven days. Boy, am I excited! I wonder where I'll end up?
Seriously, I feel for anyone who has worked 30 years and thought they had a great retirement coming. HOWEVER — as those of us flying out of Denver who are held hostage to United have painfully learned — United's theme song for years has been, "We hate you; you hate us." United has driven as many low-cost carriers out of business as possible; their employees are only slightly nicer than your average Al-Quaeda terrorist; their planes are approaching Third World maintenance standards; their policies (at least in Denver) border on moronic and it seems like every step they have taken is designed to inconvenience, irritate or outright rob the business traveler...the people who pay the freight.
Want to use United frequent flier miles? It's just like a Capitol One commercial...no no NO NO NO NO! Unless, of course, you'd like to visit South Dakota in the dead of winter. I once tried to use some of my billions of miles to surprise my Sweetie with a trip to Hawaii. The ticket agent actually broke out laughing.
There are United employees who have been so revolting, hostile, obnoxious and downright rude in their dealings with me that I not only harbor the secret hope that they lose their pensions, but that they are turned out onto the street to live in a cardboard box, are kidnapped by aliens and spend the rest of their lives sampling anal probes.
United has for years had a policy of screwing customers. Welcome to Economics 101.
Actually, you just described Delta to anyone from Atlanta or Cincinnati, USAir to anyone from Pittsburgh or Philly, Northwest to anyone from Detroit or Minneapolis, and of course American to anyone from Dallas. They all suck, everything you said applies to all the old hide bound union dominated airlines. They have mistreated their customers, run a grossly inefficient hub and spoke system for too long, and ignored the concepts that keep every other business in the U.S. working or kill the ones that ignore econ 101. The survivors are going to be Southwest, Airtan, Jet Blue and the rest who finally get it. I won't shed a tear for any of the old line airlines, in fact good riddance to all the bastards!
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Dan